The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-06-20

be established so through long and glor-
1ous reign has the strength of her throne
rested in a steadfast adherence to the voice
of wisdom, who says: by me Kings
reign"
Not to speak merely in generalities, let
me call your attention to one or two par
ticulars which bear out this statement:
1. She has indeed reigned by wisdom in
maintaining untarnished the reputation of
her Court, and training hen own family as
bright example to the nation. The purity
of the Court is at all times the strength
the throne. We read history, and espe-
cially the history of the Bible, to little pur-
pose, if we do not observe this. Who was
more firmly established in his throne than
David, so long as he was obedient to Gods
will? But when he committed that sin
which he never ceased to repent of, and
disregarded the sanctities of family life, he
loosened the props of his kingdom. The
seed he himself had sown so sprang up in
rebellion and intrigue, and the words of
Nathan were found true; the sword never
departed from his house. So, too, the
reign of Solomon, under whom. the king
dom reached the zenith of its glory, closed
in cloud and shadow, with dark forebod-
ings for the future. His harem turned
away his heart and the sentence went
forth: Il will rend the Kingdom from thee
and will give it unto thy servant"
Let the Court of the Sovereign be the
haunt of dissoluteness, intemperance and
vice, and the poison rapidly spreads
through the whole social system, till the
condition of the nation can only be fifty
described in the words of Isaiah: "From
the sole of the feet even unto the head there
is no soundness IN it, but wounds, bruises
and putrefying sores" So powerful for
evil or good on the life of a nation is the
example set in high places. There is one
striking passage in Holy Scriptures which
emphasizes the beneficial or disastrous
consequences OF the habits of the Court on
the habits of the people. "Woe unto thee,
0 land, when thy king is a child and thy
princes eat in the morning. Blessed art
thou, o land, when thy king is the son of
mobiles, and thy princes eat for strength,
and not for drunkenness" 1t was woe to
the land when, at the Restoration, freed
from the stern hand of Puritan restraint
the nation, following the example of dis
extravaganza and vice. But blessed has
been the land under the present reign,
where the Court of the Sovereign has been
bulwark of religion and virtue; where
the wives and mothers of England, look
ing to the example of their Queen, have
beheld in her the pattern of all that is true
and lovely and of good report i'll woman;
and when the Court of the Queen and the
sacred home of all domestic virtues has
been the pattern of family life to every
home in the country.
2. Now, if the high personal character of
the Sovereign and the bright example of
the Court has been the brlwark of the
throne, we may see another source of
blessing in the respect of the nation, from
the Queen to the humblest of her subjects,
for the Sacredness of the Lords Day. The
national reverence for this Divine institu-
ton has been upheld and strengthened by
the example of the Queen and Royal fam
lily. Those who would break down or ig-
more the obligations of attendance at pub
lie worship on the day of rest, find nothing
to appeal to in the practice of the Court,
which has been to ''give unto the Lord
the honor due unto His Name" The
promise Islands sure, Then that honor
Me I will honor" The English Sunday
may be, as it has been described. per-
plexity and purgatory to the Continental
nations, but it hOnors God, who from the
beginning has appointed one day in seven
to be kept holy, as day of worship and of
rest, so that bound up with the observance
of the seventh day rest are both the duties
Of religion and the rights of human
ity. The nation has honored Almighty
God by refusing to diminish the honor in
which it holds this sacred day, or trench
upon the rights that it bestows And we
can scarcely doubt that this testimony of
the nations faith in the redemption of the
world through our Lord Jesus Christ of
which the first day of the week is an abid-
ing memorial has been a source of the
honor bestowed upon the Crown. How
deeply the neglect or observance of the
Lords Day may affect the best interests of
a nation we cannot attempt to define. But
it is written in the history of the chosen
race that beneath the idOlatry and all the
other sins that were denounced by their
Prophets. The neglect of the Sabbath and
the Sabbatical year was the root sin calling
down the judgment that issued in the 20
years captivity, "until the land had en-
ioyed her Sabbaths, for as long as she lay
desolate she kept Sabbath to fulfil three
score and ten years" With this history
before US we may be sure that it is no light
thing that Gods name has been hallowed
by the nations reverence for the day which
God blessed and sanctified in the beginning,
and in this respect we may thank God that
the example of the Sovereign has been
guided by wisdom.
And now I will pass on to another point
in which we may trace the guiding hand of
the same heavenly wisdom. 1t is not for
its own glory and aggrandisement that the
inheritance of large portion of the earth's
surface is granted to any nation. God has
His own purposes IN the oestowal. En-
pire, like every other possession, is trust
OF which account must be given. We can
trace clearly enough the finger of God
guiding the rise and fall of the successive
Empires of the ancient world in his prepar-
alton of the world for the first coming of